Time Well Spent

We talk a lot about fixing aged care. And a lot of it comes down to the system we’ve built.

But what if the problem isn’t just the system… it’s the way we’ve designed the entire experience of ageing?

In this episode, Dane and Rose sit down with Paul Browne from LDK, who’s built a model trying to challenge exactly that.

From the “one move promise”… to why today’s residents expect something completely different… to what happens when you stop building aged care like a hospital and start thinking about it like hospitality.

Because if the expectations of this generation have changed… the question is whether the sector is actually keeping up.

Key moments:

0:00 - How does a police officer from QLD end up building a retirement village empire?

4:23 - Today’s residents have travelled, spent and lived differently… so why are we still building for a completely different generation? 

7:43 - The gap between retirement living and aged care, and why the system makes it harder than it needs to be 

8:51 - The promise that shaped the entire LDK model: never having to move into a nursing home 

12:53 -  Why exit fees are becoming harder to justify, and what a simpler “money in, money out” model looks like

23:08 - Do residents actually care about being around death… or have we just assumed they do? 

27:52 - Why running aged care like a hotel might be closer to the answer than running it like a hospital 

32:10 -  If people are living longer and staying longer… what does that do to the viability of the model? 

39:44 - There’s nowhere for people to go… so where does that leave retirement villages and hospitals? 

47:13 - What changes when you stop trying to fit inside government frameworks and build outside them instead 

50:15 - “Support at Home” is here… but is it actually working the way it was intended to? 

52:04 - Could this model work outside high-income areas… or is it only viable for a certain demographic? 

1:02:29 - Why most operators can’t replicate this model and what actually breaks when you try to scale it. 

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And if you want to connect with Dane and Rose or the Podcast, you can find them on Linkedin.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/dane-mitchell-763ba524

https://www.linkedin.com/in/rose-plater-0a111a129

https://www.linkedin.com/company/time-well-spent-podcast

The New South Wales coroner recently released findings into two deaths at a Sydney aged care home.

Two residents on modified diets for swallowing difficulties.Both choked to death on food they should never have been given.

When something like this happens, the response is often to look for who got it wrong.

But what if the real issue is how easy it is for things to go wrong in the first place?

In this episode, Dane and Rose sit down with Chris Deed from Pure Food Co to discuss what’s actually happening inside aged care kitchens, where the gaps are between care plans and reality, and why something as fundamental as food is still one of the biggest risks in the system.

Key moments:

0:00: Two deaths, one system: how does something like this actually happen inside a facility?

2:55: 50% of residents have swallowing difficulties… what that really looks like in your kitchen day to day

04:42: No speech pathologist on site: who’s actually making the call on a resident’s diet?

05:51: Care plan vs reality: how does the wrong meal still end up on the plate?

10:59: IDDSI explained and why misunderstanding it creates real risk

13:07: “Dignity of risk.” Are we signing these off too quickly without fully understanding the consequences?

16:06: Why even well-run kitchens struggle to deliver consistency (and where risk creeps in)

19:16: If nutrition changes outcomes… Why isn’t it treated like a clinical intervention?

21:03: Protein, malnutrition, and what most providers are missing across the day

25:29: What a good texture-modified meal actually looks and tastes like (and why that matters more than you think)

27:11: New Aged Care Act: does the sector finally have the framework to get food right?

31:59: Choking deaths have doubled. What needs to change immediately?

32:09: The real problem Pure Food Co was built to solve

37:57: When food gets done properly… What actually changes for residents?

39:37: From anxiety to eating in the dining room again… A real example of impact

41:39: Inside the kitchen: What most people don’t realise about how aged care food is actually delivered

If you want to learn more about The Pure Food Co, head over to www.thepurefoodco.com/aus/,or if you want to chat more with Chris, get in touch on LinkedIn here.

Find out more about Pure Food's latest white paper Feeding Strength & Dignity here.

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And if you want to connect with Dane and Rose or the Podcast, you can find them on Linkedin.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/dane-mitchell-763ba524

https://www.linkedin.com/in/rose-plater-0a111a129

https://www.linkedin.com/company/time-well-spent-podcast

We spent two years trying to protect older Australians.

But did anyone actually ask them what they wanted?

During COVID, aged care became one of the most tightly controlled environments in the country. Residents were isolated, families were locked out and providers were making big decisions without any solid evidence. We’re sure you don’t need to be reminded how that played out.

Today Dane and Rose are talking with someone who is in the system currently with his mum going through the aged care funding packages as we speak - the Former Commonwealth Deputy Chief Medical Officer, Dr Nick Coatsworth.

Nick is reflecting not only on what those decisions looked like in real time, but what we got wrong, and why some of the hardest questions still haven’t been answered.

Including: If another pandemic hit tomorrow, would anything change?

Key moments:

0:00 - How a hospital doctor becomes the public face of Australia’s pandemic response

6:03 - What the government got wrong when it came to isolating aged care residents

9:18 - Who should have been making the calls during the pandemic and whether aged care providers were left to carry too much of that burden?

13:28 - The lingering impact of COVID on how the sector now thinks about risk, safety and infection control

18:41 - Is a lack of honest conversations with the public a recurring theme?

26:23 - The statistic that changes how you look at COVID in aged care and what it actually tells us about how residents live and die

37:51 - If another pandemic hit tomorrow, would we be prepared? Would there still be mandates?

43:43 - Why don’t we ever seem to learn from previous mistakes?

50:02 - The conversations most families avoid and why they matter more than anything else when it comes to end-of-life care 

57:01 - What made Nick publicly push back on the misinformation bill and what that reveals about trust and control

59:53 -  How badly did COVID damage our trust in institutions? Did it just expose where it was already breaking down?

1:02:03- The one question we didn’t ask during COVID that should shape every future response

Metro homes make up around 65% of the sector.

So they should be the most financially stable right? They’re performing the worst.

At the same time, more than half of providers are still losing money… and we’re being told the system is improving. So what are the numbers actually telling us?

In this episode, Dane and Rose sit down with Stuart Hutcheon from StewartBrown to break down the latest benchmarking data and where the pressure is really coming from.

From funding models that don’t leave room for a margin… to providers not pulling the levers already available to them… to a system that still isn’t set up to attract investment.

Because if these numbers are right, we’re still a long way from a model that works.

Key moments:

0:00 - Why metro homes (65% of the sector) are now the worst performing financially… and what’s driving that shift

6:34 - 60% of providers are still losing money… Are the reforms actually fixing anything?

9:31 - What it really takes to get new beds approved… and why providers are hitting roadblocks before they even start?

15:04 - The accommodation review

21:27 - Should the market be setting RAD prices in metro areas… and what happens if it does? 

24:50 - The “everyday living” gap: why even with higher supplements, providers are still running at a deficit

29:01- Should residents be paying extra for things they expect in normal life?

33:0-1 - The simplest lever providers aren’t pulling… and why it’s directly impacting financial performance

37:28 - There’s $4.5 billion sitting unused in home care… so why isn’t it reaching the people who need it?

40:55 - Where 30% of every home care dollar actually goes… and why that’s becoming unsustainable

52:18 - Are we quietly cutting funding while calling it “reform”?

56:55 - The number the sector actually needs to be investible… and why we’re nowhere near it

58:48 - if you could change three ithings in the next 12 months to shift this trajectory what would they be

1:02:026 - What small providers need to understand right now if they want to survive what’s coming

We design aged care services around living well.

But what about leaving well?

Death is inevitable in residential care, and yet most organisations have no clear framework for what a good death looks like. No structured training, no consistent rituals, and in some cases, no funding for the final day of care.

So today Dane is turning the mic on Rose, to sit down and unpack the policies we don’t have, the conversations we avoid, and the leadership decisions that shape the final experience of life in care.

Key moments:

0:00 - What shocked Rose when she first starting working in aged care and designing death

4:22 - What Rose learnt from experienced clinical staff about what actually shapes a good death

5:35 - Why aren’t we recording something as simple as the preferred place of death?

7:29 - Are we training our staff enough about how to design a good death?

9:34 - What are we doing that might be well-meaning but affecting the lives of residents and staff?

13:16 - Is there a right way to handle death in a residential facility?

16:02 - When we hide death, what is the cost?

17:04 - What happens when funding doesn’t recognise the final day of care?

19:23 - Switzerland is doing things differently: what designing for both living and leaving looks like

22:43 - The beautiful moment Rose got to share with her grandmother thanks to a nurse

26:08 - What leaders should be doing now

What happens when an industry built on care is uncomfortable talking about money?

Aged care is framed as something that should exist outside the language of profit, investment and commercial thinking. But without those things, it becomes very difficult to build the homes, services and communities the next generation of older Australians will rely on. And that time is coming quickly.

In this episode, Rose and Dane sit down with Charles Moore, CEO of BaptistCare, to talk about why the sector may need to rethink the way it talks about capital, growth and commercial sustainability.

Key moments:

0:00 - The tension between profit and purpose in aged care, and why the sector needs to get more comfortable with being commercial

4:53 - Why attracting capital into aged care might be one of the biggest challenges facing the sector

10:20 - The role retirement living could play in solving the bed shortage

12:54 -  What “integrated care” actually looks like inside BaptistCare’s model

15:56 - The things Charles believes need to change if the system is going to work long-term

20:32 -  What Charles learned working on the Sydney Olympic Park development and how that thinking has shaped BaptistCare

25:26 - Why attracting younger people into the workforce is becoming more urgent

26:20 - BaptistCare’s clustering strategy and how it changes the way services are delivered

33:08 - The thinking behind the recent merger and what it enables them to do

40:52 - Why Charles believes this might actually be the best time to invest in aged care

44:11 - The story behind Hope Street and the role projects like this can play in communities

50:17 - How housing affordability is shaping the future of aged care

55:19 - What Charles hopes the sector could look like in the years ahead

Australia has an Aged Care Home problem. And it’s already creating pressure in regional communities.

Current projections suggest that 80,000 additional beds will be needed over the next decade. They’re currently being built at less than 1,000 beds a year … And the gap is starting to have a very real effect on the industry. 

We’re already seeing it play out in service viability, workforce strain and further limiting options for regional families.

In this episode, Dane and Rose sit down with Chris Mamarelis from Whiddon Aged Care to talk through what’s happening in regional Australia. From why funding and viability remain the biggest constraints, to how providers are being forced to take matters into their own hands when policy makers just aren’t keeping up.

Key moments:

0:00 - Why regional aged care is where the system is breaking first

3:47 - “The problem is viability”: Why services are closing even though demand exists

5:18 - How capital grants are being used to make otherwise unviable regional projects possible

7:41 - How Triple M and regional loadings work and why they’re still falling short

9:18 - Why very small regional homes are becoming no longer viable

13:06 - What Whiddon actually means by relationship based care (with real examples)

18:44 - Why COVID has made people afraid to enter residential care again

21:46 - Recruiting in regional towns vs metro including timelines, agency use + cost

23:38 - The real cost of skilled migration and what Whiddon does differently for its staff

31:12 - Why Whiddon stopped waiting for government and launched a collaborative health model

39:52 - Why Australia is massively underbuilding aged care beds despite clear demand

44:41 - Standalone community providers are being forced to merge or exit

1:00:02 - Chris’s message to the government about funding

4,812 older Australians died waiting for the right level of home care last financial year.

When Adrian Morgan last joined the podcast, he warned that Support at Home could create serious unintended consequences.

Six months on, a lot of those predictions have played out.

So what went wrong?

In this episode, Adrian Morgan is sitting down with Dane and Rose to talk about what’s happened since the Act came into effect and whether the course can still be fixed.

If you want to listen to our first episode with Adrian you can listen to it on Spotify or Apple.

Key moments:

0:00 - Six months in… what has actually changed since Support at Home began?

7:59 - Co-contributions: are they quietly pushing people to refuse care altogether?

11:28 -  The prediction that the system would collapse under its own weight… is it already happening?

13:29 - Why are clients being reassessed out of services they were already receiving?

22:09 - The “black box” algorithm: who really controls the outcome of an assessment?

24:58 - Dementia, diabetes, anxiety… and told there’s “no impairment.” How is that possible?

28:32 - Are regional providers about to hit a financial breaking point?

32:49 -  Is there anything in this reform that’s actually working as intended?

36:47 -  CHSP: the only part of the system functioning well… so why merge it?

40:12 - What happens to provider viability if CHSP disappears tomorrow?

49:22 - Have peak bodies been too cautious “inside the tent?”

59:18 -  Seven changes that could stabilise Support at Home

1:04:02 - The promise list vs the reality list: affordable, simple, person-centred… or something else?

01:08:59 - If the Minister is listening… What would need to change, today?

Most aged care organisations simply talk about dementia.

Warrigal decided to formalise it, take it to the board, and make it measurable.

Today Dane and Rose sit down with Jenni Hutchings, CEO of Warrigal, to talk about why Warrigal chose to formalise its approach to dementia through a 2030 Dementia Action Plan.

The conversation looks at what shifts when dementia is treated as an organisational responsibility, and what it actually means to place love, connection, and dignity at the centre of decision making. Not just in language, but when it’s embedded in an organisation's systems, training, and staff accountability.

Read Warrigal’s Dementia Action Plan here.

Key moments:

0:00 - Why Warrigal decided to put dementia on the board agenda, and what changes once it’s treated as a leadership issue

6:15 - What it takes to turn dignity and dementia into something measurable, rather than values on a page

9:15 - What organisations learn once their commitments are made public and measurable

10:01 - Why Warrigal chose to formally teach touch and connection in dementia care

16:30 - Leadership advice from a CEO to 2,500 staff and 600 volunteers

22:00 - How intergenerational care programs are changing more than just workforce supply

27:20 - The reaction from younger staff that challenges commonly believed assumptions about aged care

30:12 - Where the current funding models stop lining up with how residents actually experience care

34:36 - The kinds of innovation that policy settings are ruling out today

52:00 - Supporting people at home: an outcome the system simply isn’t equipped for

53:51 - If loneliness sits underneath so many outcomes, why it still isn’t treated as a core policy issue?

The last time we had Paul Sadler on the podcast, we spoke about the upcoming reforms to the Support at Home program that were due to go live in November.

The reforms are now live and for many older Australians and providers, the reality looks very different to what was promised.

We wanted to get Paul back on the show to talk about exactly what has happened after the roll out of the Support at Home program and the new Aged Care Act. 

From algorithms that are deciding the fate of service providers without any professional opinion, to funding decisions that are reshaping access to care, we have a lot of questions.

Key moments:

00:00 - The last minute decision assessors were told about the day before rollout02:02 - What happens when an algorithm decides eligibility and clinicians can’t override it03:24 - People are being assessed as ineligible or far lower than their needs suggest07:18 - Why this is being compared to robo debt

13:16 - Why people are choosing to stay in CHSP despite higher assessed needs14:43 - When providers are pushed into regulatory risk without funding16:19 - Interim funding at 60% is becoming the default entry point19:15 - Who decides which 40% of assessed care gets ignored

23:38 - The immediate changes that could be made without new legislation

30:19 - Pricing, claims, and what providers still can’t get clear answers on34:35 - Why hardship applications are already increasing

36:31 - What’s actually changed in residential aged care under the new Act

45:23 - Why new beds aren’t being built, especially in regional areas48:21 - Where innovation is happening despite the pressure on the system

53:00 - “The least broken part of the system”  and why it’s now at risk